I looked back suddenly

I looked back suddenly

into the empty room

and saw the lamp that I had lit

still shining on the little table by the window

and throwing its light on the tumbled sheets of paper

on which I had been writing.

And I felt as though long years ago a man,

whom I had know very little,

had lighted that lamp,

and sat by the window writing and believing that he was a poet,

and then he came out of the room and found the letter.

He would not go into the room again:

And not he, but I will go in softly

And put out the lamp,

And lay aside the useless paper.